Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) Read Online Free

threatened, not what she intended, but she held her composure. Who got mad over a new house?
    Her lithe, prim mother with a magazine-perfect bob of white waves and celery capris shifted her feet, but left her gaze on her daughter.
    An overwhelming year of biting her tongue, stifled under the same roof with her parents’ overbearance, spilled over. “Where I went to school, my choice of husband.” She mimicked her mother’s voice. “ Massachusetts is a long way from good people, dear .” Callie inhaled, regretted the overreaction, and waited for her mother’s next blow.
    Instead, her mother sighed. “I know you feel you must lash out, dear, but it’s been over two years since John left.”
    “And Bonnie.”
    “Yes,” her mother said. “But they left some time ago, don’t you think—”
    Callie’s jaw tightened. “For God’s sake, Mother, they’re dead, not on vacation.” And buried in Boston, a thousand miles away.
    “I understand that,” Beverly replied, seating herself on an ottoman. “Like it or not, the house is yours. Sell it if you wish, but we wanted to give you a place of your own.” She cocked her head like a petulant headmistress. “It’s time for Jeb to have a home, too.”
    “Jeb’s home is my decision to make! Where I live is my choice.” Callie tucked trembling hands in her jeans, unable to mark that one point in time that caused the chasm between her and her mother. To identify what to fix—and fix it.
    “I hurt, too, you know,” Beverly said, slipping easily into her feel-sorry-for-me voice. “I never got to see my granddaughter.”
    There it was. Callie clenched her teeth at Beverly’s well-worn trump card.
    “ Your daughter lived,” Callie replied. “Anyway, you never came to Boston to visit.”
    “My dear, you never asked me to.”
    Callie moved the box of photographs to the floor with a thud. She’d decided years ago that to become a self-assured police officer, she couldn’t afford the emotional bombardment of her mother’s judgment. “Don’t you see why I moved so far away? To get away from your control. John, Jeb, and the Boston PD completed me, and Bonnie . . .” She drew in sharply. “Bonnie became the cherry on top.”
    Her mother folded her hands slowly, which she always did when she wanted to cement a point. “Law enforcement changed you, dear.”
    Callie’s eyes narrowed. “Law enforcement defined me, Mother.” Her clenched fist struck her chest. “It led me to John and gave you grandchildren. All achieved without your input.”
    “That’s enough,” said her father from the doorway.
    Jeb peered uneasily over Lawton’s shoulder.
    Callie’s heart sank at her father’s mask of disappointment. These thrusts of iron will dug under Callie’s skin. Here she stood, caught between the guilt of being an ingrate and her need to be a grown woman with a mind of her own.
    “Wish you wouldn’t fight,” Jeb said softly, the pain clear in his eyes.
    Beverly wouldn’t think such a comment was directed at her, so Callie stopped arguing. Just like she always did.
    “We’re fine, dear,” Beverly said, the timbre of her voice now oh-so-damn level.
    If Callie heard dear one more friggin’ time.
    She approached her father, the parent who could display affection, and employed the nickname that melted his bones—given to him the first time he let her drive the boat when she was only eight. “Captain?”
    Lawton yanked an initialed handkerchief from his pocket, the cloth a traditional stocking stuffer from Beverly each Christmas. “What, Callie Scallywag?” Her father’s cheeks and neck flushed red from the heat as he wiped his forehead with the handkerchief.
    “Jeb and I don’t need help unpacking,” she said, rubbing his sweaty sleeve. “We’d like to enjoy the peace. Walk the beach maybe.”
    “The beach sounds great,” Jeb said, a huge smile returning to his face.
    Lawton studied his daughter.
    “Nonsense.” Beverly strode past toward the